A root appearing in etymological notes from around 1964 (DD) glossed “narrow, thin” along with a set of Quenya derivatives of similar meaning (PE17/166).
Primitive elvish
nak
root. bite
nakh
root. narrow, thin
paran
adjective. bare, bald, naked, unclad
ndakta-
verb. to slay
nek
root. narrow, narrow; *angular, sharp
A root appearing in notes on words and phrases from The Lord of the Rings from the late 1950s or early 1960s, serving mainly as the basis for S. naith “angle” (PE17/55). It was also mentioned in a discussion of the death of Isildur at the Gladden Fields, again as the basis for S. naith among other words, where the root √NEK was glossed “narrow” (UT/281-2, note #16). In The Etymologies of the 1930s, N. naith was derived from ᴹ√SNAS or ᴹ√SNAT, but the precise derivation was unclear, and in any cases seems to have been replaced by Tolkien with a more straightforward derivation from √NEK.
The root √NEK also appeared in Quenya Notes (QN) from 1957 with the gloss “deprive”, serving among other things as the basis for S. neithan “one deprived” (PE17/167), which was the name adopted by Túrin after he became an outlaw (S/200). The root appeared again in notes on Elvish numbers from the late 1960s glossed as either “divide, part, separate” (VT47/16) or “divide, separate” (VT48/9), where it served as the basis for √ENEK “six” as the dividing point between the lower and upper set of numbers in the Elvish duodecimal system.
It is not clear whether Tolkien intended all these various meanings for the root √NEK to be connected. For purposes of analysis, I’ve split √NEK “narrow” from √NEK “separate; deprive”, but conceivably the sense “narrow” could be a semantic extension of “separate” or vice-versa.
nelek
root. tooth
tolokwe
cardinal. eighteen
appears among Q. forms but seems to be CE
tul-
verb. come, is coming, has come, is here
This root was the basis for Elvish words for “bite” from all of Tolkien’s life. It first appeared as ᴱ√NAKA “bite” in the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s with derivatives like ᴱQ. naka- “bite” and ᴱQ. naksa “sour” (QL/64). In the contemporaneous Gnomish Lexicon it had derivatives like G. nactha- “bite” and G. naith “tooth” (GL/59). The root reappeared as ᴹ√NAK “bite” in The Etymologies of the 1930s along with augmented variant ᴹ√ÁNAK and derivatives like ᴹQ. anka/N. anc “jaw, row of teeth” (Ety/ÁNAK, NAK); in this same document Tolkien considered the possibility that the roots ᴹ√NAYAK “pain” and ᴹ√NDAK “slay” might be related to ᴹ√NAK, though he did not commit to either idea (Ety/NÁYAK; EtyAC/NDAK).
One interesting derivative of this root from the 1930s was N. naeth “biting, gnashing of teeth” from which N. nírnaeth “lamentation = ✱tear[ful]-gnashing” was derived, serving as an element in N. Nírnaeth Arnediad “[Battle of] Unnumbered Tears” (Ety/NAY; LR/310), replacing earlier Nirnaith of unclear etymology. In later writings Tolkien said S. naeth simply meant “woe” in the name S. Sigil Elu-naeth “Necklace of the Woe of Thingol” (WJ/258), but this may just be a generalization of its 1930s meaning “gnashing of teeth”. As for the root √NAK “bite”, it reappeared in the second version of Tengwesta Qenderinwa (TQ2), serving again as example of an abnormal vocalization leading to the derivative ✶ankā “jaws” (PE18/87).